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Raphaela Papadakis seems to like ‘playing with fire’. After her acclaimed performance as the put-upon maid, Anna, in Independent Opera’s production of Šimon Voseček’s Beidermann and the Arsonists at Sadler’s Wells last year, she is currently rehearsing for the premiere this week of And London Burned, a new opera by Matt Rogers which has been commissioned by Temple Music Foundation to commemorate the 350th anniversary of The Great Fire of London.

20 Nov 2005

Mastered Mozart, Preached Janacek, Schmoozed Shostakovich

ASKED to imagine how we might spend our 80th birthday, most of us would say: taking it easy. But conductors tend to be of tougher mettle. Pierre Boulez turned 80 this year with scarcely a change in his working schedule. And on Thursday evening, if all went as planned at press time, Charles Mackerras did the same, marking the event by slipping quietly into the pit of the Royal Opera House as he has done countless times during the last half-century, to conduct a revival; in this case, Verdi's "Ballo in Maschera."